DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES To get an African Adaptation

Nigerian-Based EbonyLife TV and Disney have concluded a deal to produce an African version of hit comedy/drama series Desperate Housewives, which will be shot in Lagos Nigeria. EbonyLive revealed that the series will star a number of pan-African actors and is expected to premiere some time in 2014.

Read the Official statement from EbonyLife below.

It’s getting more and more exciting on Africa’s First Global Entertainment Network! Disney Is Taking ‘Desperate Housewives’ To Lagos In Deal with Nigeria-Based EbonyLife TV!

Ben Pyne, president of global distribution at Disney, announced at the just concluded MIPCOM 2013 (the international TV and entertainment market held in Cannes once every year; where content is introduced for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing). He revealed that an “African version” of Desperate Housewives – the once comedy/drama series created by Marc Cherry, and broadcast by ABC from 2004 until 2012 – is currently in development, for a summer 2014 debut. The co-production deal is with Nigeria-based EbonyLife TV – a multi-platform broadcaster, and subsidiary of Media and Entertainment City Africa (MEC Africa) in Cross River State, Nigeria.

 Desperate ‘Nigerian’ Housewives … Disney’s Katherine Powell and Giovanni Mastrangelo, with Mo Abudu, CEO and executive chairman of EbonyLife TV.
 

Desperate Housewives – the “African version” will feature a pan-African cast, and will be set in Lagos, Nigeria, where it will also be shot, with a summer 2014 debut date set, airing in 44 countries within the continent. The original ABC TV series followed the dramatic lives of a group of women, over a 13-year period, and 8 seasons, as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed suicide in the very first episode.

“We are going to make it relevant, number one, by using local talent — talent that our viewers will know and love; two, we are going to work with local stylists, local fashion designers, local interior designers, making it wholly immersed in African culture, fashion and music.” said Mo Abudu, CEO and Executive Chairman, EbonyLife TV. “We are going to give the stories an African flavor. We will localize it, because there’s nothing that the West has that Africa doesn’t have: we love, we fight, we kiss, we make up. We like all the good things in life. There’s good and there’s evil globally. So all those human interests, those things that appeal to you, believe me, appeal to us also. The series spoke universally to women and to men, about relationships, marriage and bringing up children. All those stories are there. And Africans are the original storytellers. Your grandparents would sit you down at night and tell you tales. We love a good story.”

Well then…the obvious question here is, what actresses from the continent will make up the ensemble cast in the Nigeria-set version of Desperate Housewives? Nollywood talents should definitely get some looks here…